[First published in AM New York]
THE REPLACEMENT GAME gains pace at Business Week. As longtime Editor-in-Chief Steve Shepard heads toward running the new graduate journalism school at CUNY, Mark Morrison, the magazine’s Managing Editor, might appear an easy shoo-in.
While Morrison would mostly be a popular choice among editorial staffers, opinions differ on the paper’s publishing side.
The final choice resides with BW President Bill Kupper, owner McGraw-Hill‘s chairman Terry McGraw and the President of McG-Hill’s Information and Media Division, Scott Marden. A feeling is emanating, from Marden in particular, that the magazine has lately been too stodgy and could do with being shaken up to become more “agenda-setting“.
Morrison’s 11 years as the number two might count against him.
Steve Adler, a Deputy Managing Editor at the Wall Street Journal, has emerged as a dark horse candidate and could well offer a big difference from Shepard’s rule. But compromise between continuity and revolution might come from John Byrne, who went on to edit Fast Company after an 18-year writing and editing stint at BW.
– – – – –
A REPLACEMENT IS ALSO being sought at CBS News. Filling Dan Rather‘s big galumphing Texan boots is proving a lengthy process. Les Moonves, co-president of CBS’s parent company Viacom, even suggested this week that each boot might be filled separately. There might be two anchors for the CBS Evening News, he told Variety magazine.
It’s still possible that CBS will bid on one big star from outside. Diane Sawyer, formerly of CBS and now hosting ABC‘s “Good Morning America” and “Primetime Live,” has been widely mentioned.
The old Rather slot job is most likely to go to the CBS newsman who’s been groomed for it – John Roberts, the network’s White House Correspondent. In 1997 he was given the anchor desk on a show [called perhaps appropriately “Under Fire”] for CBS News’ short-lived cable channel. His anchor chops were further exercised by frequent subbing for Rather and by other newsroom shifts (he still anchors the Weekend News).
Some staffers put him down for his alleged Brooks Brothers mannequin looks (and polite Canadian manner), but a vigorous stint embedded with the Marines in Iraq and his service right now in the hostile environment – for CBS – of the White House press room may have ended that.
His internal rival, Scott Pelley of “Sixty Minutes” has, in a surprisingly public ploy, been touting his own strengths. Roberts puts a high premium on company loyalty – and so far hasn’t broken the Moonves-imposed rule of silence about the succession.
– – – – – –
NO SEARCH FOR REPLACEMENTS at The Times. Very much the opposite, in fact. The Old Gray Lady is letting go all two dozen staff at New York Times Television – including the group’s brisk and deft President, Bill Abrams (formerly of ABC News and the Wall Street Journal) – and is replacing them with … precisely no-one.
Its Greenwich Street production facility is being closed and no more documentaries will be made. Instead, the onus for filling time on the Discovery-Times Channel, the cable service co-owned with Discovery Communications, will fall upon a small hard-pressed TV news team which remains inside the paper’s main 43rd Street building, producing video more closely tied to the company’s print output.
